Sunday, August 31, 2008

I've had a tough few weeks adjusting to the medical school schedule as well as the workload. I'm not a morning person ordinarily, and so I've had to make my body adjust to the new schedule. Trying to commit to 9:30 bedtimes whenever possible, and trying to make myself sleep, have presented challenges. You know what a night owl I've been for several years. It's been my practice to be up blogging and/or writing emails after my work in the evenings, often 'til 2 a.m.

Well, with the new schedule, I definitely got overtired. I had been doing an OK job managing, but though it was all very exciting, it was really getting hard. Finally on Thursday, I succumbed to the exhaustion and had a killer nap -- long and deep and full of very strange dreams (but not as strange as hers; there was no sex with Jessica Simpson). I see those weird dreams as my brain trying to repair itself and adjust to all this nonsense for such an old dog. It was great and much needed, but though I had planned to go to yoga that evening, I could not break out of the post-nap fog enough to do it.

The next day, I felt totally on top of my game at work. I had enough energy to make it through the morning without wilting, and my steno-writing kicked ass. The problem is that after medical school classes, that day was only a third over. After the regular morning of med school, I had several hours to kill before an evening orientation session I was to cover, then I had to pick up Abigail at the airport. Home is not that far from work, but far enough to make it too taxing to drive home, then drive back and go back to work.

The work is lucrative enough that I decided it would be worth it to get a hotel room to take a nap for a couple of hours in the afternoon. That was a challenge, it being college move-in weekend, as well as Labor Day Weekend. I almost gave up, but I finally scored a room. I checked in immediately, got washed up, and lay down for a nap. I have a hard time sleeping in strange places, but I was finally dozing off.

*knock-knock-knock* "HOUSEKEEPING!"

FOR FUCK SAKE.

WHY????! WHAT?????!!! GO AWAY! I'm RESTING!

I made a complaint at the front desk when I checked out. The guy was very apologetic, but did not offer to refund my money. I didn't ask him to, either. He asked if I'd had the "Do Not Disturb" sign on my door, which I hadn't. But when I had JUST BARELY CHECKED IN, why would housekeeping be just popping in???? What possible reason???! Why can't the world just LEAVE ME ALONE sometimes?! Ugh.

Anyway, napping is the new yoga. That night Abigail's plane was late, and we didn't get home 'til well after midnight. I had to be back on campus yesterday morning for another morning orientation event, which went better than I expected. But I couldn't wait to get home and TAKE A NAP. I did, for three solid hours! I might finally be feeling caught up on my sleep now, though I'm still suffering post-nap brain fog. I've got an all-local chicken soup (everything is from my garden except the chicken itself, and the garlic, both of which are from a local farm) simmering on the stove, and a double batch of tomatoes drying in the oven (good Lorrrrrd, I love those!), and I sent out my bills for this past week. I've got today (Sunday) off, Abigail's home, and I'm even considering pulling one of the unfinished sweaters out of wherever it is they've been squirreled away, lo these many months. "Considering." I said "considering." Don't get too carried away with making assumptions. It's a considerment, nothing more. But I've had naps! Anything could happen -- including me making up words again.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

1. CindyCindy won the yarn. Sandy acted as my official "Random Number Generator," and she chose Cindy's number. Congrats, Cindy! And thanks to all who played.

2. Someone recently let me know that she is having problems with the links in the Red Scarf Blog. She says every single link she tries shuts her Internet Explorer down. I tried it with Firefox, and every link works. I tried to go to that blog, as well as this one, with Internet Explorer, and IE froze each time and didn't even load the frickin' thing. I haven't used Internet Explorer for years for that very reason, and frankly I rather thought that nobody uses IE anymore, (very parochial of me, innit?) but it still doesn't make me happy to think that the blog doesn't work with IE, and perhaps other browsers. Anyone else having any trouble? Not that I'd have a clue what to do about it, but I am interested to hear if the blog is useless or unreadable or is giving you trouble in any way. I can hear it now if we mention it to Typepad: They'd say, "Use Firefox." Which, of course, would be my advice, too. Heh. I mean, really: It's free, and it's damn good, and it doesn't have all the flaws of IE, which are legion. I'm just godawful thankful that Typepad has not yet graced me with the dreaded upgrade that fouled so many people up several months ago. Knock on wood.

3. The fact that I am still blogging daily is a testament to how much I love the blog and how much of an outlet it is for me and what a true hobby it is, more than any other hobby. Because I tell ya, if it weren't for that, with the schedule I'm keeping right now, I simply could not be here -- this next week in particular. I'm thinking this schedule will either kill me or make me stronger. If I come out alive, I'll still be blogging every day. Hell, I might still be blogging if I'm dead -- you just never know. If I ever stop blogging, please come to the funeral, will you? At least have a virtual one for me? You'll probably have to help make the funeral arrangements, because honestly, I think you friends and readers know me better than any member of my own family.

4. Don't hate me because my tomatoes are beautiful.

5. I tried on (again) the red scarf that is going to be mailed out, and I really need one of those for myself. I just love that thing. Such a simple pattern, but it's so great, and so red. I must have something in the stash.....

Friday, August 29, 2008

My mom dropped by on Sunday morning as I was processing the latest peck (or it could have been a bushel or a metric tonne -- I don't know -- some quantity, anyway) of beans that I had picked. I know she doesn't really like, nor do I, the ones that are a bit on the large side, but that's really all I had on offer at the time. Still, as I had demonstrated to myself over and over all week, MY overgrown beans are still tasty and tender and wonderful.

Anyhoo, my poor mom. She declined to take the large beans, and said maybe she could come by for my next picking. Her loss, but I understand. There is nothing worse than tasteless, tough, stringy beans. But I reiterate: Mine are not that way! Honest!

When she was here, I was in the middle of making The World's Best Green Bean Casserole, which totally lives up to its name. The idea of this would also be a concept that is slightly foreign and ridiculous to my mom. "If you've got Campbell's cream of mushroom soup in the supermarket and canned beans," she would probably wonder, "why the hell are you going to all that trouble of making your own sauce from scratch?"

She came of age, having moved from East Armpit, Quebec, to West Groin, Vermont, in the '50s and '60s, and she had four kids in cloth diapers and a dead husband and a town-clerkship that she inherited from my father to manage, and a garden and house to take care of, I think all before she even became an American citizen -- what can I say? In her shoes, I would have been the first to say: "Bring on the frickin' Campbell's!"

Anyway, make this casserole. Though we have never been a "green bean casserole" family, I remember the time when Sandy did a poll something along the lines of "What dish do you consider essential to be on the Thanksgiving table?" (I think it was Sandy, anyway...) and I remember it seemed that 90% of the comments were "green bean casserole!" so apparently our family is deficient in some way. I will have to put this on the Thanksgiving table and just see what happens. I'm guessing there will be requests for the recipe from my family members. I used spelt flour for the thickener. I did not have any of those french fried onions in my pantry, and the writer of that blog says they are mandatory, but I only used a slice of the ever-present-this-week Jewish rye bread and 1 tablespoon butter for the topping, and I have to say, her addition of a touch of sherry and my addition of the rye bread and caraway seeds.... it is so good I'd almost be willing to enter into a bake-off competition with her over this.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

A while back when I talked about a fungus attacking the stem of a tomato plant, Sue wrote that she had successfully used cinnamon to stop a plant fungus. I had read this assertion before, and have read it a couple times since. Well, the other day I decided to give it a try on my powdery mildew problem on the squash plants. I didn't know what would happen, but I figured what the heck. I went out and used a ginormous bottle of Costco cinnamon (next time I will go to the dollar store, because even Costco cinnamon is not cheap!) all over those giant squash leaves. I didn't do the entire pumpkin patch, because those leaves looked too far gone, I thought.

I noticed a few things when I did the cinnamon-sprinkling: Well, it's a well established fact that cinnamon is a female aphrodisiac, and I gotta tell you, when sprinkling about a pound of cinnamon all around me, well.... Fact. (Excuse me -- I'm off to Costco to buy another pound of cinnamon so I can take a bath in it...)

Okay, I'm back. What was I saying.......?

Oh, yes. So apart from that physical effect on me, it seemed to upset the bees that were pollinating the summer squash. They seemed upset and maybe even disoriented by the strong scent. I don't know if that is a lasting effect, and I hope it's not harmful, but one of the reasons we are losing our bees, I've been reading, is that the pesticides that are being used in "traditional" agriculture are making the bees somehow disoriented and unable to find their hives. So that worried me a little bit.

Also, this has been a rainy year here, and I am practically eaten alive by mosquitoes whenever I go out to my garden, even in the full sun. But when I was coated with cinnamon, not one mosquito bothered me. Or maybe I was just so blissed out by the love powder that I didn't notice if they did. (What? That was NOT ME with a straw up my nose doing cinnamon lines!)

I wasn't able to go to my garden the day before yesterday, but when I got home from work yesterday I went out and I found this:

Perfectly perfect, unblemished by powdery mildew, squash leaves. All these leaves were coated with powdery mildew the other day, and it even rained the other night and much of the cinnamon washed, or was blown, off. The leaves I missed (because at that point I needed to ....well, you know, I got distracted) still have a little bit, but otherwise we're all good. I sprinkled more cinnamon on the untreated spots yesterday, though I didn't have enough to get everything.

So there you have it. My little garden cinnamon experiment.

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And a little funnism from work: There is a very knowledgeable presenter who is featured heavily in this multi-week section of work. There is just a leetle problem: He has a heavy Indian accent.

The first day he was talking a lot about the epicardium of the heart, which he pronounced A.P. cardium. All right, fair enough. I caught on to that one about ten minutes into this talk after I saw "epicardium" written on the PowerPoint, and adjusted my steno writing accordingly.

Eek. If it weren't for all that talk about alveolar gas exchange I had in the courtroom for all those many years in DUI cases, I wouldn't have had a clue WTF he was talking about. You should have seen the hearing students cluster around my screen, too. And they looked at my face like, "How did you know that?!"

But just when I was smugly basking in the glow of being The Most Amazing and Intelligent Human Being on Earth, "infarct" started translating "infarmer's market." I made "FARKT" a brief form for "farmer's market" during the Michael Pollan talk. This is exactly why I hate brief forms -- they lurk in there in that steno dictionary, forgotten, until they come out at the most inopportune moments. Thankfully, I have a wonderful working relationship with my medical student, we both had a great laugh about it, and I fixed it quickly on the spot. But geesh.

Then followed two hours of a speaker who talks no less than 7 million words a minute. I was a puddle of quivering goo at the end of it. My student asked me, "Which do you like better -- a slower speaker with a heavy accent, or a too-fast speaker without an accent?"

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Yes, well. U is really for Utah, but I've gone on and on about it as if I'll never get over it, and really I won't, I loved it so much. I mentioned to a couple people that I could very easily move there. One of them would be losing her main CART provider if I moved. She yelped, "NO, YOU CAN'T!"

Nice to be wanted.

I hope you will forgive me about the Utah lovefest lately. But the package of things Margene mailed to me (because I could not fit them in my suitcase, which was just a carry-on) arrived. I'm calling it the rest of my Utah Economic Stimulus Package.

Elsebeth Lavold Book No. 8, enough Silky Wool to do the cover sweater (I hope!) and a couple of Addi-Turbo needles. Silly me, I thought I'd get to start the sweater while in Utah, but I spent my knitting time on the lovely Chinese red wrap. There is also an Addi lace needle in the mix, the one I'm using to knit the Everyday Wrap, and boy is that a lifesaver.

Hm. I just noticed how well the sweater will go with the new bag....

Better get knittin'! I wonder when exactly I will have time.

You will be glad to know I did not buy this "Norma is Playing Julia Roberts Playing Tess Playing Julia Roberts in Ocean's Eleven" hat, though all my crazy compatriots totally thought I should. For once I did not cave in to peer pressure. I really did sort of like the way it looked, it would really be nice to have a hat that would protect my delicate aging skin and eyes, and it would be totally da bomb for my next time I go to the Royal Ascot, but since that will likely be, uh, never....I saved the dough and left the hat for someone else. Besides, I had just bought the dinosaur bone necklace, and that was quite enough for one day. Well, that and the black skirt. Enough. See? I know when to stop. I do.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Really, I'm kind of skipping T because it could be for tomatoes, but that's been so done around here. It could be for travel, because I've done more of that this summer than I've done in a long time and I'm just over the moon about it. It could be for truck, because I do love our truck for hauling compost and shtuff like that. It could be for trellis, because I love my garden trellises, though I only have workhorse ones, not some of those lovely pieces of art that I covet. But time, that's going to be in very short supply from here on in. Labor Day Weekend is going to be exactly that for me -- lots of labor -- because Labor Day coincides with the opening of college. I have a full schedule of orientation events and opening ceremonies to work this weekend, and then I immediately hit the ground running next Tuesday for classes -- full mornings of medical school, lectures starting promptly at 8 (Have I mentioned I am not a morning person?) a couple-hours' break, and then various and sundry undergrad classes including that gem organic chemistry LATE in the day. Under normal circumstances, I'd just be about waking up at that hour, but since I'm forcing my body to shift schedules, AND I will have already put in a rather full day by that point, I'm thinking....hm, not so much.

BUT I'm NOT COMPLAINING. I'm thrilled about this turn of events, and it's a wave I want to ride for as long as I can ride it. Surf's up! Hang ten, baby!

And yes, all you concerned individuals, I'm taking good care of myself. I am very fortunate that I had an easy summer during which I had some lovely vacations and ate and exercised like a queen (in the healthful sense), so I feel like I have a good store of good health and happiness with which to embark on this (sure-to-be-exhausting-and-overwhelming-at-times) journey. In addition to that, I am going to schedule a massage every week, make sure I get enough sleep, see the chiropractor as necessary and get to yoga as much as I can. I have all the necessary tools in my tool chest and I know how to use them.

So T. There you have it -- time, what so many of us wish we had more of. I'm really just clearing the way for U for tomorrow, and I think you know what U stands for.

But because the ABC-Along is supposed to be all about the photos, I leave you with a couple of treats:

Miriam arrived at the Tuesday night stitch-n-bitch in SLC bearing this gift of her "Liquid Crack" (Purple raspberry and peach jam.) I had some of this on rye toast the other night. (The rye toast is becoming a bit of a theme, isn't it? I'd better stop that.) Sorry, I'm not sharing the jam. It's mine, all mine. DeLICious.

And a very pretty, very soft, mondo skein (500 yards, I believe) of Louet Sport Weight yarn dyed by Scout for the Red Scarf Project. She sent it to me to either knit it myself or offer it up as a prize. I am thinking "prize," because I've finished one red scarf and am not sure I will have time to do another. (Believe it or not, I would like to knit something for myself. Maybe even finish a sweater before Rhinebeck. Gasp!)

What say you? You interested in winning this big pile of loveliness? Just say so by midnight today, Pacific Time (that's 3 a.m. tomorrow my time).

(P.S. The color in the photo is quite accurate. Quite pinkish and grayish and lovely.)

Monday, August 25, 2008

As Cookie responded to my post about the garden bounty when I returned home, "Squash are sneaky."

Yes, indeed.

These two butternut squashes were not there when I left, and look at them now:

The summer squash, which got a late start because I replanted due to the beetle problem early in the season, are finally starting to give us something to eat. Not a whole lot, but something.

The buttercup squashes planted in the compost bin are really doing me proud:

The pumpkins in the other compost bin are the most bountiful of all, with some at (almost) every stage of development and color:

These are wonderful sugar pie pumpkins, which I normally cook and eat more as a squash than pumpkin as in pumpkin pie or desserts, though I would be really stupid, I think, to deny myself the pleasure of at least one pie out of my own organic pumpkins this year.

And perhaps best of all, the zucchini plant that I rescued from its too-soggy planter and placed in a raised bed is showing great signs of recovery, is thriving, and has given me my first succulent little zucchini. I ate it my first day back from vacation.

Now, isn't that all nice?

I could leave this post there, and you'd think everything was hunky-dory and rosy. But I'm not like that, am I? With me, you get the good, the bad, and the ugly. Here's the bad and ugly:

This is what the lovely spray of pumpkins from the compost bin, which had been perfect up 'til I left, look like now. Powdery mildew has taken over, and it's not good. It's really not that bad a situation, because it is late in the season and things are on the wane anyway. The pumpkins are already grown and just need to ripen, so really, if it had to happen, I'm glad it's now and not earlier. It's still heartbreaking, though. And as is inevitable, it has started to spread on the other cucurbits. This is the summer squash.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

I seem to be following the ABC-Along in clumps this time around. I tend to follow my urges, ya know. Spoiler alert: Expect more letters this week.

I love red, and I have lots more red in my life than is represented in these photos, which admittedly are garden- and tomato-heavy.

This post is rated RT for healthy and productive Red Tomatoes. If you are disturbed by images of very healthy tomato plants this season, please do not scrutinize the above mosaic on the bottom near the right. Not that I am bragging at all. No, that would not be in my nature. Would it?

I have red furniture and red rugs and red walls and red plates and red clothes and red art and red yarn (hm, not so many red clothes as I thought). But I got tired of photographing. I hope you don't mind.

Here is a red recipe -- or not so much a recipe as a method -- that the ever-thoughtful Scout sent me the link to a couple of weeks ago. I have been using it nonstop ever since. The results are to live for. Unbelievably delicious, for example, on a slice of sourdough toasted Jewish rye bread (I don't eat bread much, but an occasional indulgence like this is worth it), smeared with goat's cheese, and topped with the slow-roasted tomatoes, as shown in one of the photos above. The recipe is given for smaller tomatoes -- cherry or paste, but I use it for all sizes. I slice the bigger ones rather than cutting them in halves. This has been my breakfast a few mornings a week ever since.

Judy asked me to please not talk about this in these terms, since her garden is suffering so much this year, but every time I have an abundance of tomatoes (evil cackle) to take care of, but not quite enough to can, I throw a batch of these in the oven to slow-roast. (See, Judy? Not one word about pears, although you might notice that one of the photos above is a pear -- that is one of the Seckel pears, still growing. The Summercrisp are all picked and we're going through them rather quickly.) She asked me not to show any photos, either. I guess I'm not such a good friend, but I say all is fair in tomatoes and war.

These are not toasty-roasted like we sometimes do, and they are not as dried as the so-called sun-dried tomatoes that some people (not I) buy, but are somewhere in between -- less moist than fresh tomatoes, and with the flavor more concentrated and absolutely over-the-top heavenly. When I get sick of putting them in my MOUTH, as the author of this blog says, I'm going to freeze some for use in the winter. They will be incredibly delicious in sauces and soups. I don't usually like frozen tomatoes, but I am convinced that I will love these.

Here's something else red:

It's the ShiBui Silk Cloud that Margene gave me. Yummmm. I've started making some serious progress on it now that I've realized I need to do this in natural light. That cuts way down on the one-row-forward-three-rows-back routine I was falling into. Memo to self: It helps to see.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

1. Bubble and Bee Organic Pit Putty -- from Miriam. She let me try hers, and I was SOLD. Smells so wonderful (clove, mmmm), and really WORKS. I don't use antiperspirants, both for health concerns and the fact that they don't freakin' work on me anyway. For more than a decade, I have successfully used just a dusting of baking soda, but lately it hasn't been working and has been leaving horrible white rings on my clothing. Either they've changed the formulation of baking soda in some way, or my body chemistry has changed. It's probably the latter - I'm guessing it's the hormones that's the culprit. Anyway, I ordered some Pit Putty as soon as I got home. It's already been shipped.

2. ChaCha -- from that Alarming Female. She told me about it (she has an iPhone, dontchaknow!), and what a COOL TOOL. Just about the coolest thing EVER, is all. Just for kicks, on Wednesday night I text messaged ChaCha to ask what the weather was going to be like in Burlington the next day. A few minutes later, they answered me, and that helped me to choose my wardrobe for the next day. Too cool for school, I tell ya.

3. Concord Grape Pie -- from Cheryl. She brought some to the stitch-n-bitch Tuesday night. I've never had it before, and whoa, mama! is that to die for! I didn't actually take any home, except what was in my tummy, but I have the memory etched into my tastebuds.

4. Chinese Red ShiBui Silk Cloud -- from Margene, with an adorable Coco Knits pattern. We all tried on the shop model of this sweet shoulder wrap while at Blazing Needles, and everyone fell in love with it. Sweet simplicity and elegance personified. I've already started knitting it, and I'm just loving it.

5. Yazi ginger vodka. Margene served me this each day I was there. I didn't carry any across state lines or on the plane, but now I kind of wish I did. I went to my liquor store and was told that it's "delisted" in Vermont, whatever that means. It's absolutely heady stuff, and stunningly delicious to sip, freezer-cold, or a tablespoon on a little bit of ice cream with blackberries (as Margene served it), or I can imagine a hundred different elegant food and dessert possibilities for it. Anyway, the clerk at the liquor store told me it's probably available in New Hampshire. Well, I just happen to have a regular pee stop in NH when I make the trip to and from Boston that has a liquor store on site. I guess I'll have to make one of those trips soon so I can get my ginger booze fix.

6. A Namaste Laguna bag. These are fabulous: They have a soft leathery feel, they're lightweight, have lots of pockets, and the price is RIGHT. I've been looking for a replacement for my 15-year-old shoulder bag, and have been looking at things that cost two or three times what the Namaste bag cost, and they were not nearly as versatile. It's a winner! Now if I can just refrain from putting everything but the kitchen sink in it so I can carry this sucker without throwing my shoulder out...

Question: Was Kim photographing my bag or my bottom?

My bag is olive green, as you can see. Margene has had one for a long time in pink, Kim got one in saddle brown, and Miriam got a dark teal one. Copycats much? Good thing we're spread out all over the country!

There's more, but it's in the mail, because it wouldn't all fit in my little suitcase for the trip home. I'll show you when it gets here. Hint: Elsebeth Lavold.

Some people wanted the link to the jewelry shop where I got the dinosaur bone pendant. It is Park City Jewelers, and they do have a website, but the website is really not very representative of the pieces they have, and also it seems to me that the prices on the website are higher than they were in the shop. Try to get to Park City! There are two stores on the same street (that's the long story I alluded to). One is all chichi and glittery and cutesy and high-falutin', and it totally scared me away. The other is more rustic and inviting to a person like me -- old wood trim, and in a basement. It's got all the same stuff with only a few exceptions, but laid out differently in a completely different atmosphere. I was fooled at first, and I'm not easy to fool. (You should hear Margene telling the story of my reactions to the two stores, heh-heh-heh.) They've got the marketing right down to a T, I'd say -- they can get the person who wants the fancy, glittering stuff in the store at one end of the street -- or get the person who wants more earthy things in the other one.

Over the days I was in Utah with my lovely friends, the group was a little bit amorphous, but we usually traveled in a pack of five or six together. One thing remained constant: Wherever we went (literally 100% of the time), the proprietors of whatever establishment we were enjoying would ask, "Where are you all from?" We'd say we were a conglomeration of locals, with one Vermonter and one Idahoan. They'd wistfully say, "You are having SUCH FUN!" (As if that's an unusual thing or something!) We'd say we met on the internet and we'd get The Look -- the disbelieving look about us meeting on the internet, because we were clearly all such good and easy and comfortable friends. But people wanted to take our photographs in several places; one woman turned out to be someone that Margene knew from 17 years previous and she said longingly, "I want to go WITH you," when we left her store. I'm telling you, it was Heaven. And all thanks to blogging and the internet. *sniff*

With just a few more, this could be the knitbloggers' version of The Last Supper -- Red Iguana style. Hee.

Now I've hit the ground running, and opening weekend and the fall school schedule already has me fully scheduled and working hard. Thus ends my Summer of Ladies Who Lunch on a very high note, and I'm so thankful for my summer trips. Thank you to all the Utah ladies, to Kim, to Sandy, to Ruby and Judy and Jessie and Ann. I hope I'm not forgetting anyone. Thank you to you all. You've given me such gifts.

Friday, August 22, 2008

I'm not so much the girl who goes for the bling, but I do love me some earthy artisan jewelry, especially if it has a special local meaning. This partially explains why I'm so fond of my Iberville beach shale pieces (necklace and earrings). I'm almost always wearing them, and have taken to wearing lots of black v-neck tops to best show off the necklace. That piece of jewelry holds my body warmth and seems to be alive in its own right. It comes from the land of my ancestors and it makes me feel strongly connected to it. I get compliments on it often, even from strangers. I wear it all the time, and look, here's a little photo of me taken at Silver Lake to prove it:

When I arrived in Utah, I told Margene that while there I would like to buy a special piece of local artisan jewelry. I was thinking of a necklace or earrings. I can't wear rings or bracelets because of my work and the speed with which my hands have to move and the positions they need to get in for accuracy of the steno. The metal makes my hands hurt somehow and slows me down. It seems like it confines the little muscles and ligaments in my fingers and wrists.

Long story short (and there IS a long story, but Margene can tell it better), I found THE piece in Park City.

I bought some bling.

It is a piece of petrified Utah dinosaur bone with a citrine stone, set in sterling silver, and on a sterling choker. Here it is reclining on my unfinished Central Park (non)Hoodie of Peace Fleece in the color Sheplova Mushroom.

I'll pause here for a few seconds to allow your heart rate to resume to normal.

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And then, as if that wasn't enough, the next day we went to Sundance and somehow or other some more pieces came home with me:

Really, the dinosaur bone is in a league of its own, but these pieces by a California artist are pretty frickin' spectacular, too. Orange agate, also known as carnelian, with rustic silver disks. Here's a close-up of the disk:

There's a long story here, too: I was only going to get the earrings until Margene took things in her own hands, practically crawled over (she didn't really have to "crawl" over, since she's six feet tall -- just a little stretch was all that was necessary) the jeweler's desk, reached inside, took the necklace out, and put it on my neck. Just like that. Then all the other women started oohing and ahhing and telling me I'd regret it if I didn't get it, and oh, how perfect it was with my hair and my skin, and all this other dreck wonderful stuff. For goddess's sake, how is anyone supposed to resist these sorts of criminalspushy bitches people? The very moment it was on my neck, I knew I owned it. Quest fulfilled.

Now that I'm home, I'm also getting some strong vibes that it is time to pick up the Peace Fleece Central Park (non)Hoodie and finish that sucker. I kinda think the jewelry is saying it. Ya think?

True Story: All this purchasing activity is so unusual for me that it prompted the credit card company's fraud division to call, just to make sure someone hadn't stolen the card and started using it to buy up all the jewelry in Utah.

Here I am, modeling the new black travel skirt I got on sale in Park City, and sticking my feet in the ice-cold stream at Sundance after all that spending. It was soooo therapeutic. The only symptom of the high altitude that I suffered was a slight swelling of my feet at the ends of the days. After this icy bath, they felt fanTAStic!